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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26929690">Not Tonight (But In The Morning)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken'>Davechicken</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drunken Idiocy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Masochism, M/M, Respectful Bull</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:34:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,804</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26929690</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian has been drinking. Bull should have stopped him.</p><p>A little aggressive bartering means things are fine in the end.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Not Tonight (But In The Morning)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Potential TW: Drunken amorousness, but no advantage is taken.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After the day they’ve had, the Iron Bull isn’t surprised that the Tevinter mage who pushes at his open door tonight is inebriated. </p><p>Inebriated being the polite term for the red-eyed, swaying, alcohol-fog breathed man who kicks the door in so hard it bounces back on the hinges and nearly smacks him on the nose. </p><p>Bull has seen this before, but on other people. He’s seen Dorian drunk, and he’s normally a relatively happy drunk. Occasionally a little maudlin, maybe, or a little plaintive. But alcohol only serves to enhance what was already there, and there was no happy when he started drinking tonight.</p><p>He should have been there. When he was drinking. Bull should have found where he’d gone, and maybe stopped it getting to this point. He hadn’t realised it would go to this extreme, and he’s kicking himself for ignoring those signs. (Or, maybe, for not wanting to read them.)</p><p>Dorian swaggers in like he’s the pint of Fereldan ale on the barkeep’s tray, sloshing as he goes, licking at the sides of the glass and somehow staying in one, cohesive unit. The redness around his puffy eyes is not attractive, nor is the slight sheen of unhealthy sweat, but otherwise he’s as beautiful as ever. One hip juts out as he walks his fingers over the wooden top of the dresser, in open invitation.</p><p>“Well?” Even his voice is thick with it. </p><p>For once, Bull is at a loss for words. His tongue pokes past his lips as he berates himself for letting his happen. You don’t let your buddies, your mates get like this. You cut them off if you can, and if you can’t… you make sure they are safe. Help them throw it up and out. Get them somewhere comfortable to sleep it off. </p><p>No one stopped Dorian. He probably sweet-talked everyone into thinking he was fine. </p><p>Anything Bull says will just sound… patronising. Won’t it? But he has to do something. </p><p>“Dorian… would you like to talk about it? Or sleep it off, until--”</p><p>It sounds bad, even as he says it, and why is he suddenly so unsure of himself, when he always knows what to say?</p><p>“Talk about it? What’s there to talk about?” Dorian closes his eyes, lifts his chin to elongate his throat, and then half-turns to give a glimpse of the ass he’s pushing out. “You left the open invitation. I accepted. Now it’s your turn.”</p><p>His turn. His turn to what? Steps in a dance, that lead them always back to bed. </p><p>But the tune right now is sour, and Bull doesn’t want to put his large feet on dainty, clumsy toes. “I think maybe you’ve had one too many, and I’d like--”</p><p>Outrage, and Dorian slices his hand over the dresser top, sending the few things there scattering to the floor. He nearly follows them, and then he’s in Bull’s face, suddenly, all rage and no conviction behind the things he wants to be able to do. </p><p>“You said you wanted to fuck me, so fuck me!”</p><p>Bull has. Several times. Often in one night. </p><p>“Dorian--” he tries to gently hold a wrist, which means the Vint then feels free to try to swing at him. To land a blow, to make his fists punch or his palms shove. </p><p>Dorian knows Bull is stronger, so he can now thrash and lash out, without the attempts ever hitting. Bull takes the brief, physical tantrum, and part of him wants to let go and let him. Let him whale out his rage and disappointment. Let him exorcise them both with physical pain, as a substitute for something much deeper.</p><p>Bull knows how to turn things physical. To let the body feel what the mind is. To bundle them up together, to allow the depth of sensation to purge him. </p><p>(But it doesn’t really touch what caused the emotional pain to begin with. Not… on its own. It’s a stopgap, when training. Or a step, but not the solution.)</p><p>“Fuck me already! Conquer me! Whatever bullshit it is you said - just--”</p><p>The pain in the slighter man is bleeding all over the room, and it isn’t magic that’s doing it. It’s many, many other things, but primarily it’s that Bull… understands. The pain - the joy - the fear - the hope… he understands. He understands Dorian, and he wants to help. Not just pin him down and fuck the fit of pique out of him, but… something else.</p><p>Dorian wants him to make it go away. Fill his body with one sensation, then overwrite it with another. But it won’t make the first paragraphs vanish, just blur the letters below the new text. </p><p>Bull captures both flailing wrists, and Dorian can’t push in, or pull back. He’s sitting up in the bed, as Dorian thrashes and hisses, never quite putting his full voice behind it, his beautiful body arching in throes of something that should be much more pleasant than they are right now. </p><p>“Fuck me, before I find someone else to do it for you!”</p><p>That… that hurts. Hurts Bull like a fucking greatsword in the gut. Like all sorts of battle scars should have hurt. Hurts more than even being turned on by the Qun, and oh, but he knows now that Dorian has him pegged, even if he’s tried so very hard to be the one with the unreadable core. </p><p>Someone else.</p><p>They’ve never said it. Never said anything, really, about who they are. What they are. But Bull has made only fleeting overtures and ones he entirely didn’t mean to others, since the mage snuck in and kept sneaking in. He’s not wanted anyone else. He’s not considered anyone else. </p><p>And he’s not thought Dorian would, either, because -- why? Because. That’s why.</p><p>“Don’t,” he growls, his own pain there, now, too. Which is what Dorian wanted, all along.</p><p>“Don’t what?”</p><p>“Don’t,” he repeats, fighting how thick it is in his throat. </p><p>He moves, and in a flash, he has Dorian face-down on the bed. A hand on the back of his neck, another pinning both hands above his head. Jealousy and inadequacy rage through him, and - oh damn - this is why he didn’t track him down before. He knew, didn’t he, that the mage would go for his jugular. Would rip his heart right the fuck out, and that he couldn’t let anyone see.</p><p>Dorian whines, arching like he’s the tides craving the distant moon. Bull isn’t even sure if he’s aroused or not, but Dorian isn’t doing this for the sensation of it. He’s not seeking the oblivion of orgasm, or not primarily. </p><p>The Iron Bull climbs astride him, releasing his neck, and moving the hands to rest on either side of Dorian’s face, the wrists encircled by his own. He lowers himself with care, spreading his weight over taut shoulders, spine, ass. Covers him, and pushes the softest kiss he can manage into his lover’s twitching neck. </p><p>“Don’t. Find anyone else.”</p><p>Dorian snorts. “Because you’re doing such a stand-up job of--”</p><p>Bull tightens his hands, and fuck, but he lets the tear he’s shedding from his eye hit the bed with the softest, saltiest sound. “Because I don’t want you to find anyone else,” he says, rough, but soft. </p><p>Dorian thrashes again, but he’s just checking how tightly he’s held. He’s not trying to provoke, or escape. He needs to be held. He needs to know he’s safe. Needs to know he can lash out, or scream, or be an ass, or whatever it is he needs… and that Bull won’t let go.</p><p>So Bull doesn’t, as the mage wears himself out and instead of a satisfying wet conclusion, it’s a different one. The mage stops fighting, and instead cries almost silently. Clothed, messy, sweaty, drunk, and hurting. </p><p>“I don’t just want you to fuck you,” Bull promises, one thumb caressing the side of Dorian’s. “But I don’t want you fucking other people.”</p><p>Why? It isn’t spoken, but it’s there. Dorian is well aware he’s being a drunken, rotten, demanding and ornery shit right now. In the morning, maybe he’ll be able to remember he was trying to provoke an angry fuck, to work out his mood with grinding and thrusting. To get Bull mad enough to make it sting.</p><p>Dorian can’t ask him. Can’t tell him, outright, what it is he needs and feels. </p><p>Some of it he probably doesn’t even know for himself, not yet, not enough to put into words. </p><p>“I don’t want you fucking other people, either,” the mage manages, muffled into the pillow under his head. “There’ll be less for me.”</p><p>He needed to hear it, Bull reckons. That it didn’t need to be sex that brought him through the door. That he didn’t need to use his body to get the other things he wanted. Didn’t need to prostitute himself, that Bull would hold him even if it wasn’t about fluid exchange. </p><p>That he didn’t want him to leave. </p><p>Dorian starts to unwind beneath him, the temper going, and something calmer washing in each breath. Bull waits until it’s clear he’s through the worst, and then he rolls to his side, and tugs gently until Dorian relents. The mage rolls too, and pushes against his flank, and rests his head on his shoulder. He’s still dressed, though he awkwardly toes the boots off, and Bull knows he’s staying the night when he does.</p><p>A blanket lifted around them both, comfortingly, and they settle as if they’d just fucked anyway. Small fingers on his waist, and ragged, but calming breaths. </p><p>Something hurts inside. Worse than when he has Krem hit him with the hardest thing he can find. Worse than the feeling that drives him to need that. But Dorian cinches ever tighter in, and Bull kisses across his brow, and holds him as firmly as he dares. </p><p>It isn’t about fucking. It’s nice, when they do. Very, very nice. But it isn’t fucking, not with him. </p><p>He cups the man’s ass, and feels him slowly drift to sleep, mumbling nonsense that he pretends not to hear for the other’s vanity and avoiding his embarrassment. </p><p>In the morning, it will be different. He knows, because he feels it already. Mine. Only mine. Yours. Only yours. </p><p>If he’s still ready, if he’s still wanting, Bull will make love to him. Make love to him like he should have known, like he should have been loved. Eyes locked, bodies locked, and a promise of mutual caring and protection. Of satisfaction, yes, but also support. </p><p>He’ll make every promise he needs. Every confirmation. Every vow, and every touch a deeper knot that he refuses to let fray or snap. </p><p>Dorian matters. And Bull will make fucking sure he knows it, and that he’s safe here, forever.</p>
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